Analisi linguistico-retorica di Joseph Ratzinger: "Das Gleichnis vom barmherzigen Samariter"

Ratzinger’s exegesis on “the parable of the good Samaritan” (Lk 10,25-37) in his work Jesus von Nazareth (Herder Verlag 2007) offers a personal reading of the evangelic passage, which highlights the depth and the intensity of a downright interior development. This development is expressed through noteworthy linguistic and rhetorical elements, which lead the reader to follow the author in his narration, developed in a graduated melding of voices and points of view (I, we, we all, everyone). The three evolving introspective levels are the stylistic mirror of the progressive author’s immersion into the text: first, the narrator’s starting point of view (Luke the Evangelist); second, the perspective of the parable’s protagonist (the Samaritan); finally, the holistic point of view of God made flesh and become neighbor in the person of Jesus. The reader is invited to personally involve himself in this interior developmental path. All rhetorical devices, with which Ratzinger reads Jesus’ answer contained in the parable, help the reader understand the semantic nuances of the evangelic passage. They reveal the aim of the “informative” act (the truth contained in it) to become “performative”, in order to challenge every reader in his free personal answer.